Free Republic

For the record it is important to keep in mind that U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, is a liberal. Yet despite DeFazio's credentials within the Democratic Party, Barack Obama threatened the Congressman, thus continuing with the White House modus operandi of intimidation.

Her choppy blue-and-blond hair hiding the fear in her eyes, a 15-year-old voiced her dislike for a hip-hop music group and got punched in the face by a classmate. The whole thing was caught on tape, and social media helped police in their investigation. A crowd of six to 10 classmates were following the self-described emo girl and her boyfriend home from school in Newark, Ohio, on an autumn day in September. Some kids were taping it and others were egging on the assailant, who was on the school wrestling team. It all started because Alexis Xanders doesn't like Insane...

ALAMEDA, Calif. – The school board blinked. Under the duress of a lawsuit and threats of recall, the Alameda Board of Education has voted to phase out an elementary school curriculum it adopted in May to prevent anti-gay bullying. The so-called Lesson 9, which had become an opposition centerpiece in a national anti-gay marriage campaign, will be replaced by a more generic anti-bullying message. But the board's action Tuesday night did little to ease the tension between gay parents, who want their children protected, and parents who who think elementary school is too early to talk to students about gay...

Details are sketchy but it appears the months long crisis in Honduras is close to being over thanks to an agreement between the legitimate government headed by President Roberto Micheletti and Chavez wannabe Manuel Zelaya that was dictated by the United States government. The agreement calls for the return of Zelaya to power. In return, the US promised to recognize the result of the elections scheduled for the end of November. The Voice of America is reporting: "Mr. Micheletti said late Thursday he has authorized his negotiating team to sign an agreement that "marks the beginning of the end" of...

Don't be deceived by the honeyed baritone voice and big smile. Bluffs, bully plays, and head fakes are the means by which President Obama tries to get his way. He learned the technique from Saul Alinsky. The best answer is to use Alinsky against them. We know their rule book, and we can use their rules just as well as they can. The aggressor sets the rules. Obama constantly uses Alinsky's principle of head-faking: "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have." For Obama, "the enemy" is us, the American people. We have to...

CNN just keeps embarrassing itself. Oddly enough, Rush Limbaugh could help them out, while doing himself a little good at the same time. Following close on its much-derided ‘fact checking' of an SNL skit poking fun at President Obama, and the humiliating pat-on-the-head it got as an Obama administration-certified legitimate news organization, CNN has now queried a psychiatrist as to why folks listen to conservative talk radio, especially Rush Limbaugh. CNN's Carol Costello interviewed psychiatrist Gail Saltz. (Video courtesy of Breitbart. Watch it!) The premise that one should ask a shrink, in seeking to find out why folks listen to...

GENEVA – Geneva School Board members voted Tuesday night to issue a warning against a Geneva High School teacher, who a student claimed made a homosexual slur in his classroom last week. The notice against teacher David Burk states that any further improprieties could result in dismissal. Geneva High School senior Jordan Hunter, who is gay and said he was personally offended by the remark, did not think the board's action went far enough. He believed Burk should have been fired. "I'm just disappointed," Hunter said. "I'm shocked, really. This is not an acceptable end result." According to Hunter, Burk...

A small East Bay school district's effort to protect children of nontraditional families from being bullied has sparked a lawsuit from an out-of-town Christian legal group and a campaign to recall three school board members. On one side are parents who believe the Alameda Unified School District board's decision to authorize a lesson in the so-called Caring Schools Community Curriculum violates their rights to teach their children about sexuality issues on their own terms and will indoctrinate their children into what they call the homosexual lifestyle. On the other are parents who believe the curriculum's Lesson 9 is vital for...

Claims made by the anti-marriage side of the Proposition 8 battle that unfolded last year in California asserted that unless marriage parity was stripped away from gay and lesbian families, children in kindergarten would be "indoctrinated" through school lessons teaching them about alternative families. Though education officials denied this, the message resounded with voters, who rescinded existing family rights for gays and lesbians at the ballot box last November. But even though gay and lesbian families lost access to marriage in that state, California parents are still asserting that kindergartners are being exposed to lessons about gays and lesbians in...

Was it only April? There was President Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about Iran's nuclear program and ballistic missile capability, and saluting America's plucky allies: "The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles," he declared. "As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven." On Thursday, the administration scrapped its missile defense plans for Eastern Europe. The "courageous" Czechs and Poles will have to take their chances. Did the "threat from Iran" go away? Not...

President Obama's choice to monitor school safety once boasted that he introduced homosexual advocacy into the school system in Massachusetts by manipulating the message presented to lawmakers. The revelations about Kevin Jennings, who was named assistant deputy secretary for the office of Safe & Drug Free Schools in the U.S. Department of Education, come just as several of Obama's "czars" have come under scrutiny for their actions, opinions and affiliations. Environmental adviser Van Jones resigned last weekend after revelations of his links to communism and his advocacy for the movement that contends the U.S. government conspired to allow or cause...

Millions of Americans who shop at Costco receive the retail giant’s monthly magazine The Costco Connection. I have to confess however that my copy of the publication usually never makes it past the garage. Not so the recent August issue, which promotes on the cover a “Back to School” series of essays for parents and children. Since one of the essays promised to take on the issue of bullying, I decided to take a closer look. Bullies seem to be everywhere these days. From the schoolyard to the political arena thugs young and old have been learning that threats and...

This newspaper traces its roots to before Las Vegas was Las Vegas. We've seen cattle ranches give way to railroads. We chronicled the construction of Hoover Dam. We reported on the first day of legalized gambling. The first hospital. The first school. The first church. We survived the mob, Howard Hughes, the Great Depression, several recessions, two world wars, dozens of news competitors and any number of two-bit politicians who couldn't stand scrutiny, much less criticism. We're still here doing what we do for the people of Las Vegas and Nevada. So, let me assure you, if we weathered all...

Aug. 30, 2009 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal SHERMAN FREDERICK: Enough is enough, Harry Stop the childish bullying This newspaper traces its roots to before Las Vegas was Las Vegas. We've seen cattle ranches give way to railroads. We chronicled the construction of Hoover Dam. We reported on the first day of legalized gambling. The first hospital. The first school. The first church. We survived the mob, Howard Hughes, the Great Depression, several recessions, two world wars, dozens of news competitors and any number of two-bit politicians who couldn't stand scrutiny, much less criticism. We're still here doing what we...

The Obama admin appointed Kevin Jennings, founder of the pro-homosexual GLSEN organization, "to oversee the nation's safe schools" program. Jennings was involved in the 2000 "Fistgate" scandal in which homosexual adults at a GLSEN youth workshop "guided young teens on how to engage in sexual perversions, including the violent gay practice known as "fisting," (Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ......... 6/6/09 A coalition of Christian organizations has launched an effort to have him removed, asserting that Kevin Jennings is one of the most vitriolic anti-Christian activists in America. Jennings is known for his prolific use of obscenities to describe Christians....

When Anisa Borsberry confronted a group of playground bullies she hoped it would finally bring an end to her 11-year-old daughter’s ordeal. But the next day she found she herself was the victim . . . with the forces of law and order lined up against her. Eight police officers in three patrol cars and a van descended on her home and arrested her. Anisa Borsberry with daughter Taylor, 11 The 40-year-old was marched out in handcuffs even though a claim that she had hit one of the bullies had already been withdrawn. She then had her fingerprints and DNA...

For a while there, when President Obama was riding high off the passing of the Porkulus plan, and his narrow house victory on Cap and Trade, he backed off his standard excuse for each of the nation's problems; "Bush, Bush,Bush, Bush,Bush, Bush!" That was before unemployment got up to 9.5%, America discovered that the stimulus plan did not involve "shovel-ready" projects, and the President was pushing a Health Care plan that was nothing more than another attempt at redistributing `income and a new attempt at euthanizing old people. Now that America is realizing that the "Emperor has no clothes" Obama...

Did the President, (when he called/summoned Elmendorf to “his house” last week), explain that the CBO was just using the wrong numbers? Or, did Obama just set a different table with a different menu that Elmendorf could find palatable?

For the second time, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has dealt a blow to Obamacare. Their analysis of a White House/Congressional proposal to give an independent panel the power to keep Medicare spending in check, reported the panel idea would save a measly $2 billion over 10 years. Its not often one can call $2 billion measly, however the term is appropriate when its an offset to help pay for a $1-1.6 trillion Obamacare bill. In mid-July CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose "the sort of fundamental changes...

The Washington Post recently ran a story quoting Democrats as bragging that President Obama has deliberately patterned his legislative strategy after LBJ’s, circa 1965.This may explain the treatment of Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the supposedly nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office who last week told Congress that you can’t “save” money on health care by having government insure everyone. For that bit of truth-telling, he was first excoriated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Then he was summoned, er, invited to the White House for an extraordinary and inappropriate meeting Monday with President Obama and a phalanx of economic and health-care...

The bullying seemed inescapable. His family and friends say it followed Iain Steele from junior high to high school -- from hallways, where one tormentor shoved him into lockers, to cyberspace, where another posted a video on Facebook making fun of his taste for heavy metal music. "At one point, [a bully] had told [Iain] he wished he would kill himself," said Matt Sikora, Iain's close friend. Iain's parents know their son had other problems, but they believe the harassment contributed to a deepening depression that hospitalized the 15-year-old twice this year. On June 3, while his classmates were taking...

Well before Barack Obama brought hope to the White House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi was adamant that something new and different and wonderful had arrived. In 2006, the incoming Speaker pledged that hers would be the "most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history." At the time, we were skeptical -- to say the least. Our refusal to accept her rhetoric was roundly vindicated last week. That was when Madam-Speaker used every dirty trick at her disposal to coldly ram a 1,500 page global warming bill through the House of Representatives. The Speaker chose to stifle the usual observances...

The California Republican Party seemed to hit political paydirt in a YouTube ad that pilloried the Service Employees International Union for "bullying state leaders in the budget process." The ad featured footage of an angry woman telling lawmakers that union members would work to defeat lawmakers who didn't vote their way. It turns out that the woman portrayed as an SEIU union leader in the commercial is a home health care worker from Fresno named Lisa Brown, who works for the state by caring for her son who has Down syndrome. Now Brown is calling on Republicans to pull the...

Saul Alinsky taught two generations of American leftists to use ridicule as a potent political weapon. When the left infiltrated America's entertainment outlets, the practice achieved industrial scale. As I read about the ongoing controversy about David Letterman's vicious attack on Sarah Palin's 14 year old daughter, my first thought was that I wasn't surprised. I have always found Letterman to be a bit of a misogynist. In recent years he has also been increasingly unfunny. James Lileks said it best. But no, it must be funny, because David is funny and hip. Right? Or maybe not; maybe he's actually...

The founder of the homosexual activist group GLSEN, which promotes homosexual clubs in high schools , middle schools and grade schools and is the driving force behind the annual "Day of Silence" celebration of homosexuality in many districts, has been handed a federal appointment where he will be responsible for overseeing "safety" in the nation's public schools. Linda Harvey of Mission America, which educates people on anti-Christian trends in the nation, said it is nothing more than a "tragedy" for an open homosexual who has "had an enormously detrimental impact on the climate in our schools" to be in such...

The founder of the homosexual activist group GLSEN, which promotes homosexual clubs in high schools, middle schools and grade schools and is the driving force behind the annual "Day of Silence" celebration of homosexuality in many districts, has been handed a federal appointment where he will be responsible for overseeing "safety" in the nation's public schools. ... The appointment of Kevin Jennings was posted – with little fanfare – on a government list of federal jobs recently. He was named by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to be the Assistant Deputy Secretary in the Office of Safe Schools. ... "In...

Conservatives Decry Anti-Bullying Courses As 'Gay Agenda' By On Top Magazine Staff Published: May 28, 2009 Alameda Unified School District officials approved a new anti-bullying effort that includes teaching respect for gay men and lesbians on Wednesday, drawing a rain of protest from social conservatives who decried the curriculum as “formal instruction in concert with the gay agenda.”Officials in the California district decided in a 3 to 2 vote to add lessons about gay men and lesbians into an existing anti-bullying curricula. The six 45-minute lessons will be offered to students as early as kindergarten.At lower grades, students will...

Hard Cases, it is said, make bad law" -John Campbell Argyll When a jury convicted 49 year old Lori Drew of O`Fallon Missouri (an ex-urb of St. Louis) in the now-infamous cyber-bullying case in which Drew posed as a teenage boy on Myspace to woo-then harass-13 year old Megan Meier, many were pleased that justice was done. But that pleasure quickly turned to disgust when it was learned that the jury`s verdict came with a standardized recommendation of probation and a large fine rather than jail time. The presiding judge in the case can still impose jail time at the...

It has prompted angry exchanges, dozens of e-mails and led hundreds of parents to gather at school board meetings to voice their support or opposition. Now district trustees are set to finally decide whether they will support lesson plans for students in kindergarten through fifth grade that are aimed at curbing anti-gay bullying. The idea behind the proposed curriculum is to provide a safe environment for children to learn, as well as to offer a framework for teachers to break down stereotypes and teach kids about different types of families. Supporters say the lessons will also help children of gay...

Every properly trained school child knows the correct way to handle a bully. You look him calmly in the face and make an "I-statement" that describes how his bullying affects you. An example of an "I-statement" is: "When you talk to me that way, I feel diminished and scared." Unfortunately, the Karate Kid of Keswick High must have missed the lesson. The 15-year-old, whose family came to Canada from Korea five years ago, has a black belt in tae kwon do. So when a schoolyard bully called him a dirty rotten Chinese (or words to that effect), he deftly chopped...

Cliff Asness, managing partner at AQR Capital Management, distributed the following letter after listening to Obama blast the Chrysler hedge-fund holdouts.

People who are bullied as children have twice the risk of having delusions, hallucinations or other psychotic symptoms as pre-teens as those who have not been bullied, British researchers said on Monday. They said bullying -- especially when it is severe or chronic -- can have serious consequences for some children, and may even act as a trigger for people who are genetically predisposed to schizophrenia.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Eleven-year-old Jaheem Herrera woke up on April 16 acting strangely. He wasn't hungry and he didn't want to go to school. Jaheem Herrera's mother thinks he hanged himself because he was perpetually bullied at school. But the outgoing fifth grader packed his bag and went to school at Dunaire Elementary School in DeKalb County, Georgia. He came home much happier than when he left in the morning, smiling as he handed his mother, Masika Bermudez, a glowing report card full of A's and B's. She gave him a high-five and he went upstairs to his room...

By O’Ryan Johnson | Friday, April 10, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage An 11-year-old Springfield boy, traumatized by school bullies, tied one end of an electrical cord to a support beam and cinched the other around his throat, hanging himself inside a stairwell of his family’s home, police and relatives said. Carl Walker-Hoover left a note for his family in which he apologized, told his mother he loved her and left his video games to his brother, police said. “It’s heart-wrenching,” Springfield police Sgt. John Delaney told the Herald. “It’s not uncommon for a police officer to find a...

Threats of protest halt Pink Swastika author's scheduled talk by Temecula Valley News staff The Murrieta/Temecula Republican Assembly’s (MTRA) next meeting was scheduled to be April 3; however, that meeting and location are now in doubt as a result of threats of protest. According to MTRA president Bob Kowell, their speaker was scheduled to be Pastor Scott Lively from Abiding Truth Ministries in Massachusetts. Pastor Lively’s book, “The Pink Swastika,” has gained the attention and protest of gays and gay activists across the world. “The meeting was to be held at Temeku Hills Country Club,” said Kowell. “Temeku Country Club...

A 16-year-old charter high school student allegedly struck out against a classmate who had been bullying him Wednesday by stabbing the youth with a scissors in a school hallway. Chicago Public Schools officials said the stabbing happened during a "conflict resolution" session -- in which the perpetrator and his father had come to meet with the dean of academics over how to address threats from the alleged bully. CPS officials said the father and son had been meeting with school officials on the issue just before 9 a.m., when the son left the dean's office and encountered the alleged bully...

Our eldest Son is a Union Member, an Ex-marine & is reading "Atlas Shrugged". He doesn't believe that Unions EVER used intimation or threats of violence as they dealt with workers in a not yet unionized workplace. He doesn't believe that there was a time when Unions could force their way in, without a Secret Ballot. Sue and I need links to old Text Books, Newspapers, and Court Records that prove our Worries are valid.

Nanaimo students will wear pink today, along with tens of thousands of British Columbians, to show they will not tolerate bullying. As part of a provincewide campaign, Wednesday has been recognized as a day to don pink to deliver the anti-bullying message. The protest started after an incident at a Nova Scotia school in September 2007, when a Grade 9 high school boy was harassed, called a homosexual and threatened after wearing a pink polo shirt on his first day of classes.

HB 1624 Bullying, harassment, etc.; provides specific information for Bd. of Education in its model policy. Board of Education model policy; bullying, harassment, or intimidation. Provides that the Board of Education must include in its guidelines and model policies for codes of student conduct standards for school board policies, the use of electronic means for purposes of bulling, harassment, and intimidation. In the case of suspension and expulsion, the procedures set forth in this article shall be the minimum procedures that the school board may prescribe. B. School boards shall adopt and revise, as required by § 22.1-253.13:7 and in...

A FEW YEARS AGO my daughters and I were searching for sand crabs on a white-sand beach near Monterey. A group of sixth graders descended on us, clad in the blue trousers and pressed white shirts of their parochial school. Once lost in the sounds of the surf, away from their teacher’s gaze, they called one another by nicknames and mocked the way one laughed, another walked. Noogies and rib pokes, headlocks and bear hugs caught the unsuspecting off guard. Two boys dangled a girl over the waves. Three girls tugged a boy’s sagging pants down. Dog piles broke out....

Meet Esther Kennedy. Esther Kennedy was born and raised in Rural New York and moved to the Dover Portsmouth area to work in public schools. She is currently the owner of a Marina called Esther's Marina on 41 Pickering AVE in Portsmouth. She has worked in the special education department in The school systems of Dover and Guilford. She has also worked in Marine affairs and several state wide task force. Yes! We should believe a typical city politician in a large growing New England city. There is however a dark side. Esther Kennedy was an employee of the...

LOS ANGELES – The grieving mother of a Missouri girl told a jury Wednesday how her daughter hanged herself with a belt after receiving cruel messages on her MySpace account, some of which were from a boy whose identity was later revealed to have been invented by a neighbor. Tina Meier recounted how "Josh Evans" interacted online with her 13-year-old daughter, Megan, during the first day of the trial against Lori Drew, who is accused of taking part in the Internet hoax that prosecutors say led to Megan's suicide. Meier said after a name-calling exchange between Megan, "Josh," and two...

PEARL, Miss. -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi said Friday that it had received numerous reports from throughout the state from parents and students regarding alleged violations of students’ free speech following Tuesday’s election, Jackson television news station WAPT reported. On Thursday, the Pearl Schools superintendent said that a school bus driver and a coach were disciplined for allegedly telling students not to say President-elect Barack Obama’s name. Reporters with 16 WAPT News received several calls from upset parents that said a school bus driver told the children on a Pearl school bus that if they said Obama’s...

New Mexico cops detail broomstick hazing at H.S. football camp SEPTEMBER 12--A quartet of boys attending a high school football camp were assaulted last month by broomstick-wielding teammates in a violent hazing ritual that could lead to charges against the assailants and the New Mexico squad's coaches. According to police interviews, the attacks were targeted against freshman and sophomore members of the Robertson High School team, which spent four days last month at a pre-season camp in San Miguel County. During the attacks, each of the younger athletes was pinned to the floor of a cabin and had a broomstick...

HARRISBURG—Two bills sponsored by State Senator Stewart J. Greenleaf (R-Montgomery / Bucks) were approved by the Pennsylvania General Assembly on Friday, July 4, 2008. Language from Greenleaf's Senate Bill 71 addressing bullying in schools and Senate Bill 579 concerning the placement of twins and multiples in the classroom was included in an omnibus school code bill approved by the Legislature and now awaiting the Governor's signature. School Bullying Addressing the widespread problem of bullying in Pennsylvania schools, Senate Bill 71 will require each of the state's public schools to adopt a policy on how to address incidents of bullying by...

A week before the start of the new school year, principal Denise Magee roamed the hallways of Campbell Middle School in Smyrna, Georgia, preparing for battle. The adversary? Preteen and teenage bullies. Toting anti-bullying posters and masking tape, Magee was determined to let students see from Day One that she had a zero-tolerance policy when it came to that kind of harassment. "Middle-school kids are just cruel to each other," Magee said. "They speak their minds, so you see bullying in the form of teasing, taunting, social isolation and name calling." The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated...

A top Russian general said Friday that Poland's agreement to accept a US missile defense battery exposes the country to attack, pointing out that Russian military doctrine permits the use of nuclear weapons in such a situation, the Interfax news agency reported. *** Interfax said he added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia's military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons "against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them." Nogovitsyn said that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, according to Interfax.

A flood of calls and mail from social conservatives who don't want gay students on a list of potential bullying targets helped stall votes on a proposed school safety law. Legislators have been working on a bullying bill for more than a year, and until Tuesday morning thought they had a compromise that would pass both House and Senate. It turned out that including "sexual orientation" in a list of more than a dozen reasons a student might be bullied or harassed was a sticking point. Both the House and Senate plan to vote on a bullying bill before they...

White children are much more likely to be bullied than any other ethnic group—reversing racial stereotypes surrounding playground abuse, Government research indicates. Two thirds of children from white families say they had been bullied in the last three years but less than half of children of Indian origin make the same assertion. Anti-bullying campaigners say white children are now in the minority in some areas raising their chances of being bullied.

<p>White children are much more likely to be bullied than any other ethnic group - reversing racial stereotypes surrounding playground abuse, Government research indicates.</p> <p>Two thirds of children from white families say they had been bullied in the last three years but less than half of children of Indian origin make the same assertion.</p>